George W. Bush legalized torture, but Obama is legalizing impunity. He promised to roll stuff back, but he is institutionalizing these things forever. It is terrifying and the left doesn't seem to recognize it. Naomi Wolf More Quotes by Naomi Wolf More Quotes From Naomi Wolf The last thing the consumer index wants men and women to do is to figure out how to love one another: The $1.5 trillion retail-sales industry depends on sexual estrangement between men and women, and is fueled by sexual dissatisfaction. Ads do not sell sex--that would be counterproductive, if it meant that heterosexual women and men turned to one another and were gratified. What they sell is sexual discontent. Naomi Wolf would-be men sex Women have face-lifts in a society in which women without them appear to vanish from sight. Naomi Wolf self-esteem sight faces The surgeons are playing on the myth's double standard for the function of the body. A man's thigh is for walking, but a woman's is for walking and looking "beautiful." If women can walk but believe our limbs look wrong, we feel that our bodies cannot do what they are meant to do; we feel as genuinely deformed and disabled as the unwilling Victorian hypochondriac felt ill. Naomi Wolf beautiful men believe Maybe the less pain we inflict on our bodies, the more beautiful our bodies will look to us Naomi Wolf pain beautiful looks No matter what a woman's appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize - as her personal problem - observations she makes about the beauty myth in society. Naomi Wolf independent-women taken may Excellence, to me, is the state of grace that can descend only when one tunes out all the world's clamor, listens to an inward voice one recognizes as wiser than one's own, and transcribes without fear. Naomi Wolf voice excellence grace Become goddesses of disobedience. Naomi Wolf funny-graduation goddess disobedience Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty "fixes" that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time. Naomi Wolf makeup doe long The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. Naomi Wolf skulls battle ideas To ask women to become unnaturally thin is to ask them to relinquish their sexuality. Naomi Wolf body-image relinquishing sexuality Today, women have access to the technological capacity to do anything to our bodies in the struggle for "beauty", but we have yet to evolve a mentality beyond the old rules, to let them imagine that this combat among women is not inevitable. Surgeons can now do anything. We have not yet reached the age in which we can defend ourselves with an unwillingness to have "anything" done. This is a dangerous time. New possibilities for women quickly become new obligations. Naomi Wolf done struggle age At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition Naomi Wolf aging body self-esteem Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their advertisements create new markets. It is a boom industry because it is influentially placed to create its own demand through the pairing of text with ads in women's magazines. The industry takes out ads and gets coverage; women get cut open. They pay their money and they takes their chances. As surgeons grow richer, they are able to command larger and brighter ad spaces. Naomi Wolf cutting roles space As women demanded access to power, the power structure used the beauty myth materially to undermine women's advancement. Naomi Wolf advancement structure self-esteem ...When we quietly go about our business as our rights are plundered, when we yield to passivity and switch on the wii and hand over our power, we are not acting like true Americans. Indeed, at those moments we are giving up our citizenship. Naomi Wolf yield giving-up rights A culture fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one. Naomi Wolf bad-ass mad political Aging in women is 'unbeautiful' since women grow more powerful with time, and since the links between generations of women must always be broken. Naomi Wolf powerful broken self-esteem Most urgently, women's identity must be premised upon our 'beauty' so that we will remain vulnerable to outside approval, carrying the vital sensitive organ of self-esteem exposed to the air. Naomi Wolf self-esteem identity air The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product. Naomi Wolf economics west country Beauty discrimination has become necessary, not from the perception that women will not be good enough, but that they will be, as they have been, twice as good. Naomi Wolf discrimination perception self-esteem
